Elon Musk Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman Again

Elon Musk has re-filed a complaint against OpenAI after withdrawing a previous lawsuit, again alleging that ChatGPT’s creator and two of its founders — Sam Altman and Greg Brockman — have violated the company’s founding mission to develop artificial intelligence technology for the good of humanity.

This new lawsuit filed in federal court in Northern California on Monday says Altman and Brockman “strenuously manipulated Musk into co-founding their sham nonprofit venture,” promising that OpenAI would be safer and more see-through than for-profit alternatives. The lawsuit claims that assurances about OpenAI’s nonprofit structure were “a hook for Altman’s long-running fraud.”

Musk made similar accusations in a “ridiculously bad” lawsuit he withdrew in June without giving reasons. The lawsuit focused on claims that OpenAI violated a founding agreement between Musk and the other co-founders to keep the company’s technology open source.

“This is a much more forceful lawsuit” Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, said that New York TimesThe modern lawsuit claims that OpenAI violated federal extortion laws as part of a conspiracy to defraud Musk and that the deal with Microsoft will void the tech giant’s rights to OpenAI’s technology once it achieves artificial general intelligence (AGI).